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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25537936">Keep Calm and Carry On</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeianaLunae/pseuds/KeianaLunae'>KeianaLunae</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stargate Atlantis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fake it 'till you make it, Gen, Keep Calm and Carry On, Minor Character Death, The Siege (Stargate Atlantis)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:42:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,855</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25537936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeianaLunae/pseuds/KeianaLunae</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Major Evan Lorne is abruptly transferred to Pegasus in the second wave of reinforcements for the Siege of Atlantis but then finds himself in charge of things he isn't supposed to be in charge of, doing jobs he doesn't know how to do. Fortunately, Lorne has a mild superpower to help him out, and he taxes it to the max in this sombre story.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Keep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was meant to be a funny story about Lorne and his ability to remain calm while being manhandled by some desperate, overzealous and perhaps potentially deadly Pegasus fauna. My brain gave me this somewhat sombre and macabre scenario instead. To make up for this heinous transgression, the first paragraph is my writing prompt to you. Consider it a challenge to write your take on the (possibly humorous) one-shot that you were meant to get but didn’t. It doesn’t have to be about fauna (or flora). It doesn’t even have to be set in Pegasus. It just has to be about Lorne and keeping Calm. Off you go then, and remember to post a link to your response in the comments, or send me a PM!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Major Evan Lorne never flaps. He is the epitome of unflappability. He has The Calm. He is exceedingly cool, singularly collected, always polite and friendly. Unnervingly so, according to some of the people he had worked with over the years, which had led to some good-natured speculation that he was actually a robot. Lorne was not a robot; He just had a preternatural capacity for not freaking out. Not even that one time when… okay, maybe that one time, but if he never told anyone about it then it was as good as never having happened. Like a tree falling in a forest, if Lorne had panicked and nobody was around to witness it, did it really happen?</em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p>When you’ve seen as many things, and have experienced as many things over the years as Lorne has while being part of the SGC, you quickly learn how to move past your surprise as fast as possible and get with the program. Well, for most people, anyway. You had to, otherwise, you didn’t last long. Lorne, however, had already mastered the art of The Calm fairly well before being read into the program, and had only failed to maintain it twice during his stint with the SGC. Only one of those failures had been privy to witnesses. The other… never mind. It never happened. We digress. </p><p>When the Atlantis expedition had made contact from Pegasus, and their dire situation was revealed, Lorne had been recalled from SG-11 and their mining operation on P3X-403. The war response plan had been put together rapidly. Less than 48 hours after being radioed awake in his tent on Planet Unas, Lorne found himself calmly shoving a few personal items into a bag in crew quarters at Cheyenne with just 30-odd minutes before he and the others would beam up to the Daedalus.</p><p>His transfer to Atlantis had been effected immediately and almost exclusively because of his ATA Gene. The information they had received about the Wraith, the city, the situation and the unexpected war they were rushing into had him working The Calm overtime to keep it together. Being calm didn’t mean you never showed emotion, though. It just meant you didn’t panic. You could be happy, excited, apprehensive, confused, scared - and show it. You just didn’t panic. You simply kept it together. You didn’t let fear and anxiety and confusion rule your actions, or, more importantly, your reactions. He’d raised his voice on occasion but in a controlled manner.</p><p>He had managed to keep The Calm during the controlled chaos of gearing up for a battle in another galaxy. He had maintained The Calm during the hasty briefings, team assignments, and last-minute training sessions. For him and a few select others that meant reading manuals and descriptions from Atlantis about how to operate Ancient tech, specifically the Jumpers and small hand-held life signs detectors, and watching some of the video footage which was targeted at ATA positive people.</p><p>He definitely relied on The Calm to carry him through the sardine-in-a-tin-can environment aboard the Daedalus during its ZPM-enhanced journey to the city. He had The Calm pretty well locked down during his gear up, Asgard beam transportation, and deployment to aid in combating the ‘handful of Wraith’ still on the ground within Atlantis.</p><p>The first ten seconds after re-materialisation were extremely unnerving as his mind flowed outwards and instantaneously connected to the city. It had almost damaged The Calm but almost as fast as it had come the feeling had gone again. His brain just clicked and it had all made sense. It felt like it had always been there, and he wasn’t sure he could remember what life had felt like before having the city lingering in his head. It had cemented The Calm he was trying to project, he reckons. He had to make full use of it, not twenty minutes and one radio call about Colonel Everett later.</p><p>Lorne suddenly found himself in command of multiple infantry units. They were running on foot, tracking and engaging the Wraith in corridors and rooms of a city he didn’t know but could feel, humming in the back of his mind and through the Life Signs Detector that had been shoved into his hand almost immediately. He wasn’t a marine. He wasn’t from the ground forces. He was an Air Force pilot, but he had to be in charge and he had to fight, and he had to keep up… so he collected The Calm and did what had to be done.</p><p>Life Signs Detector in hand, he took point to lead two of the teams while coordinating the movement of several others over the radio. 30 minutes in, after their first encounter with a group of three Wraith, the NCO from one of the units pulled up next to him as he studied the scanner, ostensibly to look over his shoulder, and quietly asked him to please let two of the marines take point instead. It seems they didn’t like having their ranking officer, even if he was a Zoomie, out in front of the charge into dangerous unknowns. Lorne didn’t look up from his study of the map and didn’t say anything. The Calm flowed through him as he considered the request for a few seconds, then gave a slight nod.</p><p>The NCO melted away as swiftly as he’d come, ostensibly to handle the technicalities of assigning point guards, and Lorne let him. He didn’t know much about marines or about ground combat, but he knew better than to ignore the ‘suggestions’ of a high-ranked NCO, or to micromanage their methods. If they wanted to protect him, he would let them. You didn’t get into the Stargate program if you didn’t know what you were doing, so Lorne decided to trust that they understood the added technicalities of being ahead of the guy with the scanner.</p><p>He checked in with the control room, coordinated their next series of sweeps with the other squads, and studied the LSD of their immediate surroundings one last time before ordering the teams to move out, pointing in the direction they were heading. He kept his pace slow as they moved out, and made no comment when two marines slid past him and a third took up position next to him. The formation had been established, and Lorne calmly went with it. He gave quiet, advanced directions when it was safe to speak out loud, and the marine next to him made sure the two in front knew where they were going. </p><p>Lorne had to admit, it was easier to focus on the scanner and coordinate over the radio when he didn’t have to worry about clearing the path ahead as well. The marines seemed to appreciate his no-fuss acceptance of their request, and his willingness to work things their way, judging by the nod from the NCO during a short rest break a few hours later. Lorne gave him a calm nod back, downed his water, and got back to work.</p><p> </p><hr/><p>When the fighting was done and they were still mostly alive but running on adrenaline, he pushed The Calm outwards so that he could step up to help some more. The relief crew was put to almost full duty stations to give the regulars a chance to rest after the multi-day siege they had just been through. Nobody wanted to be the undertaker crew, and there were many disconcerted faces when the task was assigned… at least until he was put in charge of the operation.</p><p>It seemed that The Calm had earned him some minor loyalty amongst the marines he had ended up fighting alongside, and they seemed less perturbed, more diligent and definitely calmer as Lorne guided them (from his spot behind the automatic point guard that assembled) through the city to retrieve their dead. Lorne may have had The Calm on his side, but more than half the time he felt like he was only pretending to know what the hell he was doing for the benefit of the others around him. It was part and parcel of being an officer; to project confidence and surety. Sometimes, it was half pretence, half experience, and a fractional sliver of a memory of something you once read in a training manual somewhere.</p><p>Lorne had never been in charge of the mass recovery of dead bodies before, but he thought back to Ritter, on P3X-403. He also remembered Teal’c and the gentle and calm reverence that the warrior had shown as he assisted in collecting the mangled remains. He felt he adequately blended pretence and experience together when he made up a retrieval process on the spot, aided by the watching of too many episodes of forensics-based detective shows. There wasn’t much to do for recreation and entertainment on Planet Unas, so they’d steadily worked through a donated hard drive filled with bad television. Lorne had plenty of chances to hone The Calm during that off-world deployment. He was dealing with Scientists in the field, Unas in the mine and forests, Edwards in the command tent, and boredom everywhere in between.</p><p>He instructed them to take photographs of each body, from at least 3 different angles, before anything was touched. The exact location was to be marked on the tablet map, and any equipment and weapons were to be retrieved, checked, noted and bagged together. Gloves were to be worn at all times by persons handling the dead bodies. Each body was to be carefully identified, bagged and numbered, the information noted in the tablet, and then loaded on a gurney for transport to the temporary morgue that command had designated.</p><p>They moved as he spoke, and then Lorne had to rapidly channel his inner Teal’c to supplement The Calm when they rounded a corner and found their first emaciated skeleton, its face frozen in a scream. The files they’d reviewed at the SGC had warned them, even showed them photos. It was nothing like actually seeing (and smelling, and touching) your first desiccated husk that used to be a human being.</p><p>After demonstrating his entire new procedure with the impromptu assistance of three of the nearest marines, and ensuring that everyone understood, Lorne divvied up the squads and areas, handed out boxes of gloves, body bags, marker pens, post-its and cameras where needed, and left it to each unit to choose who would do what. Micromanagement wasn’t his thing. He pushed The Calm hard as the groups gathered together and prepared to move out.</p><p>Lorne slotted in with the three marines who seemed to have designated themselves his squad after being his demonstration crew. He ordered everyone to channel 8, with check-ins and updates every 15 minutes, and projected The Calm as he reminded them to stay alert. Wraith were sneaky fuckers, and while command seemed to believe the city had been cleared he also knew (from his rapid and copious reading) that they had no completely foolproof way of being certain that all of them were gone. The teams headed out on his order, grimly determined. Lorne took a breath, replenishing The Calm inside himself, and got to work.</p><hr/><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Calm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Over the next few hours, Lorne let The Calm ebb and flow through him as they retrieved body after body. One room had four bodies in it, and Lorne called in the nearest squad to assist them. The two teams blended together seamlessly, no words needed. Lorne was surrounded by The Calm and he relaxed into it, letting a working peace settle over him.</p><p>The bodies were processed in short order, and the two squads disengaged as smoothly as they had converged. The second squad’s trolley already held one body and they silently commandeered all four new bodies and departed for the morgue, fully loaded. Lorne and his squad moved on, carefully sweeping through their current sector and level in a standard room-clearing search pattern. It was familiar work, and Lorne let the muscle memory and the rhythm carry him through it.</p><p>Lorne had to rapidly call forth and let The Calm take charge when they came across their first living dead. The geriatric young corporal, marked as such by only his uniform, still held his P90 gripped tightly in his withered fingers where he lay against the wall of a nondescript hallway. Lorne only registered that he was still alive when grey eyelids fluttered open and dulled pupils rolled towards him as he tried to retrieve the weapon from its former owner. The shock had rolled through him, but The Calm kept it hidden from both the other marines and the dying man lying before him.</p><p>Lorne had looked into the elderly Corporal’s eyes and knew that it was almost over. The formerly young soldier had clung to life despite knowing exactly what a Wraith feeding of this magnitude heralded for him. There were very few reasons for a soldier to do so when knowing without a doubt that the end was coming. This, unfortunately, Lorne had some experience in, and again he simply called upon The Calm to help him give the warrior what he was fighting for: the knowledge that he had made a difference; that it had been worth it; that he was not alone.</p><p>“It’s OK, Corporal”, he quietly addressed the skeleton in front of him. One hand twitched away from the literal death grip on the gun, and Lorne laid one hand on the man’s shoulder and the other on top of the hand on the weapon. </p><p>“It’s alright now, it’s over,” he whispered reassuringly, and the Corporal’s grip on his weapon loosened further. Lorne gently helped the weapon pull free but he didn’t break eye contact. Behind him was only silence, and Lorne was quietly proud of the squad he had been working with for only a few hours. They seemed to have registered what was going on pretty quickly, and none of them approached or spoke.</p><p>Despite the brief surge of pride, it still felt wrong to Lorne, seeing as how this was <em>their</em> fallen comrade, not his, a marine, but they held back, either out of deference to his rank or uncertainty about how to handle the situation. So, Lorne held up the repatriated P90 behind him with one hand, an invitation of sorts to step up, leaving it to them to decide if they wanted in. The footsteps were quiet, almost reverent, and the P90 was taken from his hand.</p><p>A second pair came around him to the Corporal’s other side, and someone knelt down to join them. Lorne slipped his now free gloved hand into the wilted fingers and there was a barely perceptible clench, grasping his hand back. The figure on the other side moved to take hold of the Corporal’s left hand, and the eyes slowly rolled over to look that way. Lorne used that split second to glance down at the Corporal’s ribbon where his name was embroidered. The P90 and his tac vest had been covering it before, but now Lorne could put a name to the gaunt face. Riley. Corporal Riley had a question he needed to know the answer to, and Lorne would make him wait no longer.</p><p>“We did it.”</p><p>The words were soft but full of energy. Lorne pulled it out of all the oppressed panic, the squelched terror, and the pulsing adrenaline that wanted to run riot inside him and instead channelled that energy through The Calm and into his words, filling them with meaning and victorious intensity. Lying convincingly was as much an art as The Calm was. It was only a half-lie, anyway. Lorne had really had to put The Calm at work when the news had come through on the command channel that 12 more Hive ships were inbound to Atlantis.</p><p>They were quite a ways out yet, though, still a good 22 hours away. Sheppard and Caldwell and the Daedalus had headed out on a preemptive strike at the inbound fleet, hence why Lorne had been handed control of the clean-up operations. At this particular moment, the city shield was up and the infiltrators had been fought back. They had held the city and defeated the Wraith. For now.</p><p>Now was all that mattered to the dying Corporal Riley.</p><p>His words pulled Riley’s attention back to him, and there was a small spark of hope, of life, in Riley’s whitewashed eyes. Lorne didn’t blink and didn’t look away.</p><p>“We held the city. We destroyed the Hives.” Lorne kept his voice soft, but triumphant; calm but strong. Riley was hanging onto his every word as though they were a literal lifeline. The grip on Lorne’s hand tightened perceptibly, asking for more, and he gave the Corporal a little smile.</p><p>“All the darts are gone, and all the Wraith in the city are dead.” Riley’s wizened brow wrinkled a bit at that last statement, a sign of his disbelief and surprise. “The city shield is up,” Lorne added, still smiling.</p><p>The news about the shield seemed to mollify Riley and led Lorne to believe that the Corporal had to have been part of Everett’s first group through the gate, rather than his own second group of reinforcements that had beamed down from the Daedalus what felt like only a few hours before but had in fact been well over a day. Lorne’s gut clenched at the realisation that the soldier before him could have been lying in this spot for up to 3 days, alone, clinging to life, waiting for someone to come along and find him.</p><p>The Calm prevented that distressing thought from showing on his face or in his body language. It was unlikely that he had been here for so long, Lorne’s mind reasoned with him, but there was no way to tell, and Riley probably wouldn’t be able to say either. They were here now, with him, and the rest didn’t matter, so Lorne let The Calm squash that train of thought and refocused on the task at hand.</p><p>“Daedalus is here, the ZPM is here, and Atlantis is safe.”</p><p>Corporal Riley’s lips twitched just a fraction, but Lorne saw it, and he knew that the answer had been given. All Riley had wanted to know was if Atlantis was safe. His mission had been accomplished. His task was completed. He had bravely stepped through a wormhole to another galaxy to defend the city from the Wraith, and he had done his job. It was an achievement that merited celebration, even if only by stating it again.</p><p>“Atlantis is safe, Riley.” Lorne repeated, softer, and Riley took a stuttering breath. His eyes slid closed, and Lorne squeezed his hand again and bent his head closer.</p><p>“Thank you, Riley.” Lorne whispered.</p><p>Riley gripped Lorne’s hand tightly for a few seconds, and Lorne could almost feel the strength that had once inhabited the young soldier’s body. Then he breathed out, his hand slackening completely in Lorne’s as Lorne felt him slip away.</p><p>He didn’t breathe in again.</p><p>Lorne had to remind himself to do so.</p><p>The Calm came back with it.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>Lorne waited a few extra seconds for The Calm to permeate him completely before shifting to check for a pulse that he already knew he wouldn’t find. It should have been at the start of his procedure, he realised - ensuring that the dead they were collecting were really dead, but he had never imagined anybody could look like this and still be alive. Move past your surprise and get with the program, he reminded himself.</p><p>There was no pulse, but Lorne took a few extra seconds to be 200% certain, out of respect for the lesson Riley had just taught him. Confident that it was over, he let The Calm guide him as he looked back up to see that it was Sgt. Hastings who had joined him, and gave a brief nod of acknowledgement to the man’s presence. He got a nod in return. Lorne climbed to his feet and glanced at his watch, before turning to where Cpl. Garuda stood a few feet away with the tablet. Riley’s reclaimed P90 lay on the ground next to his feet.</p><p>“Please add the time of death as 03:45 AST in Corporal Riley’s notes” he quietly requested, and Cpl. Garuda simply nodded, immediately tapping at the screen. Lorne stepped away to the side and took a surreptitious deep breath before toggling his radio to transmit on the frequency that the clean-up crew was using.</p><p>The Calm flowed out of his mouth as he advised the teams to check the bodies for a pulse before commencing retrieval operations. He didn’t explain why. He didn’t have to. If the other teams were anything like the crew he was working with, they would understand. Lt. Beier was the only acknowledgement, affirming the change in procedure on behalf of everyone else on the channel. They already knew that if they found any proper survivors they were to radio the infirmary for a medical team. Lorne would have, but he’d seen Riley’s eyes and knew he was talking to a dead man. There had been no point in calling for a medical team.</p><p>Lorne turned back to where Hastings had finished divesting Riley of his equipment and sidearm. Cpl Abayo was in the process of unrolling a new body bag from their trolley and Garuda was updating the map. Lorne was tempted to step away and let them work, let them handle their fellow serviceman, take a moment to recollect himself, but then Abayo held out the marker pen to him and The Calm automatically guided Lorne to step back in and carry on working.</p><p>They bagged and tagged and loaded the trolley, and then they did it again, and again, and again until all the zones they had been allocated were cleared and the temporary morgue was far fuller than it ever should have been. Lorne stood at the door, watching as the last few bodies were delivered. The Calm drifted out on the visible vapour of his warm breath in the chilled room. He had collected the cameras and tablets as each squad finished their last delivery and, after a soft word of thanks, directed them to grab some chow and rack time. Hastings, Garuda and Abayo had seemed reluctant to leave him alone, but Lorne had given them a reassuring smile generated purely by The Calm, and they had shuffled off along with the others.</p><p>Death by Wraith feeding was very easy to identify, but there were a handful of regular bodies that needed cause of death to be confirmed. There was no time for autopsies right now, though. The pathologist, Dr Biro, was doing a brief check of each so that they would at the very least have preliminary causes for their files. If they had to evacuate the city they would have to leave the bodies behind. The Calm had held his hands steady as he had quickly skimmed through the reports and photographs from the other teams while he waited for the morgue team to finish up.</p><p>He counted and collated as he went, and noticed that the teams who had encountered the non-wraithed bodies had all taken additional photographs of whatever visible injuries and blood they could find on top of the required 3 photos. It was an odd thing to feel proud of, but he let The Calm push the disconcerted feeling away. He already had the tally for his team, so he skipped Garuda’s photos and notes and calculated the totals.</p><p>67 dead, of which 15 were Athosian and 11 were civilians.</p><p>The other 41 bodies were all military; 9 were USAF, 27 were USMC, and the last 5 were from various international military units.</p><p>He pulled The Calm towards him and did a quick count of the body bags in the room: 67. Satisfied that each body had the associated documentation, he transferred the 67 files to the Atlantis database folder for the operation, initiated a backup to the Daedalus computers, and then copied the folder to his own tablet as well. He would need them for his own report on the clean-up operation. Dr Biro zipped up the last body bag and handed him the tablet she had been making notes on.</p><p>He gave her a wordless nod, suffused with The Calm, and transferred her report files into the same three folders while she stripped off her gloves and mask to dispose of them. They stepped out of the temporary morgue together, and Lorne handed her tablet back to her as he bade her goodnight despite it being sometime in the middle of the afternoon on Atlantis. His watch was set to AST, but his body clock definitely wasn’t.</p><p>He closed the door, picked up the returned equipment and let The Calm and the hum of the city guide him back to the quartermaster to return the items. After a brief meal in the very quiet mess hall, Lorne made his way back to his assigned temporary quarters where he flopped down on his as-yet unused bed despite having been in Atlantis for over 2 days, breathed in The Calm, and passed out.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>Then ten (down from twelve) hives arrived in orbit, and Lorne awoke to the sound of a booming sky filled with thundering red-orange splotches against the invisible dome of energy that covered them. His radio crackled to life with a general status update, and 30 minutes later Lorne was tasked with herding all non-essential personnel onto the Daedalus in preparation for the most insane fake-out magic act Lorne had ever heard of; fake-destroying an entire city by making it disappear under the cover of a nuclear mushroom cloud. The Calm carried him through the evacuation, the detonation flash, and the tense wait after… and then it was over.</p><p>The Wraith had fallen for it. They were gone, properly gone, and Atlantis was actually safe. The fight was really over.</p><p>The Calm seemed to spread outwards, and everyone in the city breathed again. Relief permeated the very fibre of the city, and the three groups (Weir’s originals, Everett’s marines, and Daedalus’ backup) all managed to get some rest.</p><p>Lorne was simply relieved that he had ended up not being a liar, a feeling that really hit home when he sifted through Garuda’s photographs for his report on Riley’s death. There was one of him, on his knees next to the Corporal, holding his hand while Hastings held the other. Lorne was facing away from the camera, but you could see the entirety of Riley’s face, looking back at Lorne, listening to him as Lorne gave half-truth reassurances of their triumph over the Wraith. </p><p>The Calm was missing for a few moments, so he just sat perfectly still and waited for it to return. It slowly crawled its way back into his mind, working up to normal capacity. When he felt normal again, Lorne hit the delete button on the image. It was gone from his own files, but he didn’t dare touch the official set or the backup. It existed, and it had happened. He wouldn’t censor the truth, but he also didn’t have to carry around a reminder in his own files. He didn’t need a photo to remember that moment. To remember Riley.</p><p>Lorne got back to work.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. ..and Carry On</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three days later, Lorne had to invoke every accumulated ounce of The Calm when Sheppard, Weir and Caldwell called him into the conference room along with Teyla Emmagan of Athos. Teyla had simply dipped her head gracefully when Dr Weir named her the Acting Civilian Commander of Atlantis, and The Calm radiating out from her had steeled Lorne in preparation of receiving his new assignment: Acting Military Commander of Atlantis.</p><p>Sheppard had to be insane.</p><p>A week ago Lorne had been the XO of a fairly productive off-world Naquadah mining operation, overseeing a total of 6 people, and about 150 Unas who were pretty independent. He’d only been in the city for a grand total of six days, had only spoken to Sheppard twice, briefly, in that span, and hadn’t been to a single command staff meeting or briefing so far.</p><p>Lorne had been running around the city from dawn to dusk handling the Atlantis side of the Daedalus supply chain logistics, completing a horde of paperwork related to the Siege, conducting city-wide audits of both military and scientific equipment and supplies, and providing intermittent hands-on ATA-positive assistance with the most critical repair projects. He had also been responsible for the repatriation of the dead from the temporary morgue to a specially prepared chilled hold aboard the Daedalus for transport back to Earth.</p><p>He had been receiving twice daily status reports via radio from the Control Room and pulling the rest of what he needed to know from the network or radio chatter. Now, Lorne was going to be in charge of the entire combined Atlantis military for at least six weeks while the regular senior command staff returned to Earth, along with the Daedalus, for debriefing. He, along with Teyla, were going to be in charge of the safety, security and survival of the entire base.</p><p>Insanity.</p><p>The Calm had his back, though, and somehow Lorne was able to give them a confident and unperturbed “Understood, Sir.” that nearly matched Sheppard’s casual delivery of his career verdict. Weir and Caldwell seemed relieved at that, and Sheppard seemed… amused. Teyla just tipped her head gracefully at him, and the meeting moved on to the important details. The Calm reigned for the remainder of the meeting, and Lorne was able to nod where it mattered and speak when it was needed.</p><p>When the briefing was over, Teyla beckoned him to follow her and so he did. They ended up on a balcony about halfway down the central spire, gazing out over the ocean for a few moments as they both took a deep breath of ocean air and settled themselves.</p><p>“We have met several times, but we have not yet been properly introduced.” Teyla’s serene voice seemed to blend in with the light breeze, and Lorne turned to look at her. She was looking at him, waiting… and by the heavens, she was a vision to behold. Regal strength seemed to emanate from her very bearing, and wisdom filled her eyes. She was so beautiful.  Lorne reflexively dug deep to find The Calm so that he could answer her properly, appropriately… only to find that he couldn’t.</p><p>“We’ll have to rectify that immediately.” The words flowed out of his mouth before he’d had a chance to even process what he intended to say. Teyla grinned at him, and Lorne felt The Calm slip out of his grasp and tumble away down the side of the tower to the ocean far below.</p><p>“I am Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan, of the planet Athos.” Teyla’s honeyed and serene voice held a hint of humour in it.</p><p>“Major Evan Lorne, United States Air Force, of planet Earth.” Lorne responded in kind. The Calm was definitely completely gone now, and Lorne was sure that Teyla could hear how fast his heart was beating.</p><p>“I hear you are a pilot, like Major Sheppard?” she asked, sounding genuinely interested in knowing the answer.</p><p>“Yes, I am a pilot, but I fly different aircraft to the ones Major Sheppard does.” Lorne kept it simple. He didn’t want to throw too much technical detail into his answer, without any baseline for how much or how little Teyla knew about Earth aircraft. It was meet-the-natives-101, and in the terrifying absence of The Calm he clung to whatever fundamentals of conversation strategy he could remember.</p><p>Teyla smiled at him broadly, and Lorne grinned back involuntarily. Her smile was gorgeous and serene at the same time, and Lorne was drifting, disconnected from the reality of the world around him.</p><p>“Tell me about these other kinds of aircraft,” Teyla said, still smiling. “Do they go more than two hundred miles per hour?”</p><p>Lorne laughed at the unexpected question, and it felt great, especially when Teyla laughed with him. He didn’t need to know the history to register the pilot humour in her question, undoubtedly because of Sheppard.</p><p>Lorne realised he didn’t need The Calm to talk to Teyla. He could just talk to her. The Calm often seemed to reach out and affect those around him when he summoned it strongly for himself. Teyla had her own Serenity, and she was providing more than enough for the both of them at that very moment, so Lorne’s subconscious let go of his desperate internal search for The Calm, and let Teyla’s Serenity wash over him instead.</p><p>It didn’t matter whether Teyla even knew that she was anchoring him by evoking her Serenity onto him. It diffused into him and blended with the Ancient hum sitting in the back of his mind as he chuckled, seeping into his subconscious where the truth of his Empathic nature had lain hidden until now.</p><p>With Teyla’s Serenity blanketing him, the shock that would have come with achieving active consciousness of his true nature was avoided. Instead, just like in the first few seconds connecting with the city, it simply clicked into place, as though it had always been a part of him. There was no overwhelming awareness. There was no mental chaos. The awareness simply existed now where moments before it had not.</p><p>All Lorne knew at that moment was that he was definitely going to like it here, Wraith be damned.</p><p>They grinned at each other for a final moment, before Lorne proceeded to educate her in all the ways that his jets were superior to Sheppard’s helicopters.</p><p> </p><hr/><p>
  <span class="u"> <em> Epilogue: </em> </span>
</p><p>The six weeks that followed were hard work, but there was a tranquillity that settled over the city as the repairs progressed. Zelenka credited it to the absence of McKay’s abrasive nature, while Chuck hinted that it was because Sheppard wasn’t around to attract trouble. Lorne wasn’t deluded enough to think that he was affecting the emotions of the entire city, but between him and Teyla, they definitely had some sort of calming effect on the general mood.</p><p>At the end of each day, he and Teyla would meet, ostensibly for a command update. Some days Teyla brought her Serenity, other days Lorne brought The Calm. Occasionally they let them blend together as they stood on the balcony outside the Control Room, Athosian tea in hand, watching the setting sun as it dipped below the horizon at the end of another successful day.</p><p>The Daedalus would arrive the next day, having been slightly delayed by a Wraith virus of some sort. Teyla would hand back command to Dr Weir and Lorne would hand back command to the newly promoted Lt. Col. Sheppard. Both of them would return to off-world activities, Lorne as head of his own unit, and Teyla as part of Sheppard’s.</p><p>Lorne hadn’t been surprised when the official paperwork came through naming him XO of Atlantis.</p><p>The Calm said Lorne could handle anything.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>~~~End~~~</em>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>No beta, all mistakes are my own.</p><p>Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis or Stargate SG-1; I do not own any of the original series' characters who appear/are mentioned in this story (Lorne, Everett, Ritter, Teal'c, Edwards, the Unas, Dr Biro, Sheppard, Weir, Caldwell, Teyla, Zelenka, Chuck); all rights belong to the original creators of this fantastic series which I adore; I write only for fun and derive no remuneration from this. </p><p>Corporal Riley, Sergeant Hastings, Corporal Garuda, Corporal Abayo, and Lieutenant Beier are my creations, but they're just kinda... there, so feel free to borrow them.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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